


The Mystery Man

by PrairieFarmGirl



Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bars and Pubs, Blind Date, F/M, NSFW, One Shot, Personal Ads, Post-Divorce
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-17 15:09:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29968257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrairieFarmGirl/pseuds/PrairieFarmGirl
Summary: A/N:  So, I’m writing a little each day on The Pregnancy (a teen pregnancy AU) and I’m have a wee bit of writer’s block.  So I set it aside for a bit.  It’ll eventually come to me.But in the meantime, I had this little story swirling around in my brain.  Bits and pieces have come together to make this one-shot (no, sorry, there is no more on this one!).  Now, when you picture the Mystery Man, I want you to envision that picture of Sam in black and white wearing the pea coat and the fedora.  Yeah.  That one.  Some thought it was cheesy.  I kinda liked it.  {shrugs}  As you read the story, see if you recognize where the idea came from.  Some of you will see it right off.Also, this is set in the time before social media, such as we know it now.  Blind dates were sometimes arranged for in the want ads of the newspaper in the ‘personal column’.  Single white male 50s searching for mature female, etc.  I always got a kick out of reading some of them.  Some were particularly clever.  Most weren’t.Hope you enjoy this wee bit of cleaning out of the cobwebs in my brain!
Relationships: Claire Beauchamp/Jamie Fraser
Comments: 37
Kudos: 114





	The Mystery Man

Claire took a sip of her whisky and sat it back down on the bar. She looked around the pub from her perch on the stool at the dark walnut-hued counter. She was early, but that was mostly because she was a bundle of nerves. She didn’t know if he’d meet her, but she hoped he would. They had never spoken to each other. 

This was her first blind date. In fact, it was her first date in years. 

She was twenty years out from her divorce. She had moved to a new city in a new country, had a new job as a surgeon, and had made new friends. Her new friends had encouraged her to start dating again. Any previous attempts were always disastrous, and besides all that, she was generally too busy. Her schedule was hectic at best. Yet, after all these years, she found herself comparing them to Him and no one ever measured up. Even after all these years, she still couldn’t…

She stopped herself, giving a mental shake. It *was* time to move on.

This particular date was a hint from Joe, her co-worker. Joe had begun clipping out personal columns from the newspaper and circling prospects that sounded worthy. This week’s column, which she found clipped to a patient’s chart, had one circled with a pink fluorescent highlighter:

> _**If you like a good whisky and don’t mind walks in the rain.  
>  If you’re not into sports, but would rather use your brain.   
> If you enjoy a midnight tryst under a tree,   
> I’m the one you’re searching for…send a message to me.** _

Claire snorted. No wonder it caught Joe’s eye. It rhymed and it was very different from the typical “searching for a mature female”. Reading it again, she realized how nicely it fit in with her character. She loved a good whisky. She loved walking in a gentle rain that washed the earth clean of the harsh smells of the city. It reminded her of home in England. She wasn’t into sports, even after the numerous attempts by Joe to drag her to any number of Boston Red Sox games that bored her. She was smart and nothing amused her more than to prove it in a male-dominated profession. As for the rest of it, well…she was intrigued. 

After a few days of pushing from Joe (and little too much of that whisky), she composed a message in answer. 

> _**Yes, I do like my whisky and love walking in the rain.  
> ** _ _**I’m not much into baseball, but I love to ease your pain.  
> ** _ _**Be on a bar stool at O’Briens Saturday at huit,  
> ** _ _**If it’s really me that you’d like to meet.** _

She showed it to Joe the next day and he laughed.

“Oh Lady Jane,” he shook his head. “That’s both terrible and awesome at the same time!” He handed it back to her and told her to send it to the newspaper before she chickened out. He dared her.

And she did, because she could never turn down a good dare.

What made her do it, she’d never guess. It was completely out of character for her. But, like Joe said, she needed a change. She needed to step outside of her comfort box. 

So here she sat, wearing a little black dress, black stockings, and stiletto heels. She’d had her hair styled and make-up done by a miracle worker by the name of Franco at a trendy salon that Joe’s wife, Gail, had recommended. She had never worn so much make-up, usually favoring a hasty swipe of mascara and a bit of lip balm. When Franco had turned her chair towards the mirror, Claire didn’t even recognize herself. 

She had tipped him double for his efforts. Even Joe and Gail hardly recognized her when they dropped by to see the results before she left for her date. 

“Lady Jane, you are absolutely stunning! If I didn’t have the old ball and chain here,” Joe quipped, followed up by a swat from Gail, “I’d swipe you up for myself!”

Gail took Claire by the shoulders and looked her over, turning her this way and that. “Didn’t I tell you that Franco was absolutely the best?”

Claire had to agree. He had transformed her quite nicely indeed.

Joe then interrupted his wife’s admiration. “I’ll call the bar at exactly 8:10 and ask for you. If you want me to rescue you, just say, ‘I’ll be right there.’ If all is going well, just say ‘thank you for the update.’ That way you have an out if you need it.”

Claire nodded. She had always appreciated that Joe and Gail saw to it that she felt safe on her dates with strangers. 

She tapped her red manicured nails against her empty whisky glass, then checked the time. 7:57. She sucked in a thin, reedy breath. Christ, she was nervous.

As the bartender refilled her glass, he engaged her in the usual banter. He was an old Irishman with a thick accent. He quickly realized she was a fellow expat of the UK. They became so engrossed in conversation that Claire missed seeing the man who had entered the pub and sat on the opposite side of the bar from her. 

“Oi there, Paddy! You have a customer over here what wants a wee dram!” Paddy shook his head and grinned.

“The wife,” he pointed a thumb at the white-haired lady bustling around behind the counter, setting out clean glasses, “has summoned me. I’d best be on about my business before she sacks me!”

Claire smiled fondly at the couple as they bickered. She picked up her whisky glass and took another drink. Then she spotted the man across the bar from her. He eyed her curiously. Paddy sat a dram of whisky before him. He picked it up and held it up, tipping the glass towards her as if in a toast.

She smiled, then wondered if this was her mystery date. 

He glanced around the pub and as he did so, she studied him. He had a black fedora perched on his head at a jaunty angle, likely to ward off the steady rain outside. His beard walked a fine line between a five o’clock shadow and a full-blown beard. She could tell he was heavily muscled, judging from the way that his black pea coat was filled out. The collar of his coat was turned up and still retained some droplets of rain. In the dim, amber-like light of the pub, his hair seemed to be a dark auburn. His face had laugh lines in all the right places. Claire guessed that he was somewhere in his mid-to-late 40’s. 

She had to admit that she had hoped this was her mystery man. He was ruggedly handsome. He caught her looking at him and she quickly glanced down into her purse, rummaging for nothing in particular, in hopes that he wouldn’t think she’d been gawking at him. Which she had been.

Suddenly, a deep voice broke into her search through her purse. “I see ye like a good whisky.”

She looked up sharply into the deepest, bluest eyes. She was instantly reminded of how it was often said that men aged like a fine whisky. It almost wasn’t fair. 

He reminded her of someone she knew, but couldn’t place him. Maybe it was the eyes.

His Scottish brogue was thick, yet she could understand it perfectly. 

This had to be her mystery man.

“I do. I see you enjoy a good walk in the rain. And can speak a bit of French.” 

He chuckled and brushed off a few stray drops from his upturned collar. “Weel, I suppose I do at that. May I?” He motioned to the empty bar stool beside her.

“Of course.” 

Claire took another sip of her liquid courage. “Do you often find dates in the personal ads?”

He blushed a dark shade red and shook his head. “Och, no. I cannae believe I let my friend John talk me intae that. He said I needed tae get out more and meet people. That verse started out as a joke, and then it took on a life o’ its own.” 

“That’s exactly what my co-worker Joe said. He clipped out your personal ad and gave it to me, then dared me to answer. I wrote my answer after drinking quite a lot of this.” She lifted her glass of whisky and he tapped his glass to hers.

“Weel, then. Here’s tae good whisky.” 

They talked until they were interrupted with a phone call. Paddy’s wife handed her the receiver of the phone. “Would ya be Lady Jane, dearie?”

Claire knew Joe would ask for her by that silly name. She rolled her eyes, smiling, and accepted the phone. 

“Hello?”

She listened as Joe said his usual spiel and replied with, “It sounds like all is well, then. Thank you for the update, Dr. Abernathy.” 

She shook her head as Joe cackled and hung up the phone. 

“Sorry about that. I had a patient that I needed to check up on. Dr. Abernathy was kind enough to keep me updated.”

“Och, sae yer a doctor, then?”

“A surgeon, in fact.” 

“Ah…that explains the part where ye said ye love to ease pain. I wondered about that.”

Claire laughed. “Yes, that was rather an odd bit to say, but it rhymed and well…,” she shrugged. 

They continued to talk and get to know each other as they drank their whiskey. Before they realized it, it was closing time. He offered to share the taxi ride home with her and she accepted. Neither one was entirely sober enough to walk home on their own.

**********

“Would you like to come in for a night cap, then?” Claire was just drunk enough to not really spend too much time reflecting upon the wiseness of inviting a strange man into her home that had completely captivated her in the course of an evening. She just knew that for whatever odd reason, she felt safe with him. 

He looked at her intensely and took in a breath. “Aye.”

She unlocked the door as he paid for the taxi and she waited for him in the doorway as he came back. He stopped before her and said, “Are ye sure about this, then? We dinnae have tae…”

She decided to take the initiative and stepped closer to him. “I’m sure. Quite sure, in fact.”

Then she kissed him. 

Too much whisky gave her the courage to initiate that which she usually never did. She leaned into him and deepened the kiss. She heard a deep rumble come from him and he threaded his arms around her, pulling her flush to him. He then took over and backed her into the house, shutting the door behind them. Her lightheadedness had nothing to do with consuming too much whisky and everything to do with the heat radiating off of the man plastering her up against the wall. His tongue sought hers and her chest heaved as lightning pulsed through her veins at the contact. 

He was good at this. Really, really good. 

She tore at his black pea coat and he shrugged it off, leaving it in a heap of wool on the floor. She could feel the muscles rippling underneath his shirt. She could feel the strength of him where he gripped her by the hips and anywhere else that he could reach. She felt his hands make their way down to the hem of her dress, where his fingers toyed with the tops of her sheer black stockings. 

He pulled away from her and ground out, “I’ve been seeing the lace of these peeking at me from underneath the hem of yer wee dress all evening and it’s driven me insane!” 

Claire was too breathless to say anything. She lifted a leg up by his hip and he investigated the stockings more with his hand on her thigh. Their breathing had quickly become labored as things heated up between them. Never had Claire ever gone from 0 to 100 in such a short time. His free hand trailed up to the bodice of her dress and a finger delicately traced the neckline, down to her cleavage and back up again. She moaned when a finger found her nipple beneath the dress. Gasping at the shock that she felt all the way down to her curling toes, she tilted her pelvis into his and was met with his hardened length beneath his black trousers. One touch of their cores lit an explosion of feeling between them. 

He pulled up the hem of her dress and slid his hand between them to touch her beneath her lacy black underwear. She keened low when he slid a finger between her legs and touched her. 

“Christ, ye’re sae wet fer me!”

She struggled for breath as her hips sought his fingers, gasping when they circled exactly in the right spot. She reached between them and tore at his belt and trousers, needing to touch him as well. When she circled him with her fingers, he leaned his head back, bucked his hips and moaned, “Fuck!”

She fisted and stroked him until he groaned and begged her to stop before he came in her hand. 

He kissed her fiercely then, and then tore away. “Yer bedroom?”

He picked her up and she guided him, between kisses on his neck. As she sucked on his neck, he emitted a strangled cry and placed her on the floor by her bed. Quickly they ripped the clothes off each other and she launched herself at him when he told her to leave her stockings and heels on. 

If she had thought he was wonderfully built clothed, she could never have imagined him naked. He was truly magnificent. Had he not been doing wonderful things to her with his mouth, she could have stood and stared at him forever. 

He pushed her backward onto the bed and crawled up between her legs. “Do I need tae put on a condom?” he panted.

“No, I’m on birth control.” Thank heavens she had just never taken the time to go off it. She had always reasoned that it was better to be safe than sorry. 

He looked at her again with questioning eyes. She knew what he asked without voicing it. He was giving her a chance to stop now. But she didn’t want that at all. “Do it and do it now. And Christ, don’t be gentle!”

He sucked in a breath at her words and plunged into her. Both cried out as he filled her to the root, panting as they tried and failed to catch their breaths. He pulled out and then plunged hard back into her. She cried out again, the pleasure nearing the breaking point. 

“I cannae…oh god…I cannae…pleeeease,” he cried out. 

She reached around behind him and grabbed his arse with her hands and pulled him to her over and over. He arched his back and threw his head back, muscles bulging in his arms, as he gritted his teeth. She felt the heat begin to flood through her as her inner muscles began to clench around him. He sped up his thrusts and with a final plunge, they spiraled out of control together on a loud shout.

**********

Later, much later, they lay together, sweat gluing their skin together. He trailed a finger up and down her back, leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake. 

He pulled his head back to look at her. “Ye ken, I never learnt yer name.”

She was so relaxed and drowsy. Her voice, barely above a whisper, said, “It’s Claire Beauchamp.”

His head shot up and he sat up quickly in the bed. She grumbled as his sudden movement rolled her from her cozy spot. 

“Claire?!” He rolled the R in her name. Just like…just like…

Her eyes opened wide and she stilled, then whispered, “Who are you?”  
  


“Jamie Fraser. Ye ken? Yer ex-husband.”

Fuck. 

**********

After the shock wore off, they sat at the kitchen table, wrapped up in blankets and drinking strong coffee, as they caught up on the twenty years that they had been separated from each other. 

She told of how she had finally left England and got a spot at Harvard Medical School, where she became a doctor. That was where she met Joe. They worked together in Boston. 

He had left her and went back to Scotland. He spent part of his time at his family’s whisky distillery and the rest was spent on the family farm. He was in Boston because his distillery had expanded into the US, where he headed up the corporate headquarters in the states. He had left the farm in the capable hands of Jenny and Ian’s brood of grown children. 

They had married young. Too young, in fact. Neither were prepared for the stresses of life as a married couple and had split after a particularly explosive row over money and the fact that Claire didn’t want children. Both said things neither one meant and, given that both were equal amounts stubborn, they didn’t give in to the other and admit to any wrongdoing. 

They hadn’t spoken to each other since. 

She still couldn’t believe neither had recognized the other. The Jamie she remembered was lean, with brilliant red-gold hair and clean-shaven. He spoke with a watered down Scottish accent at the time, trying to fit in with the others in England where they attended university.

She had been much thinner, hair curled out of control. She never wore make-up as she simply didn’t care to. She wore jeans and bulky sweaters. She was in nursing school. 

Neither saw it until now. They studied each other, looking at the changes twenty years had brought about. How they’d grown and matured and aged. How he had a rugged handsomeness about him. How she had filled out in all the right places. How he had a streak of gray in his hair. How she had the most intriguing laugh lines around her mouth. How his accent had thickened back to the Scottish brogue that he had always gone to so much trouble to try to hide. How she had seen that she was, indeed, smart enough to get through medical school and become a doctor.

How he had regretted divorcing her for twenty years and could finally voice that to her. How she had wished that they had made up and had stayed together. How each was sorry for that and more. 

How he hadn’t forgotten that she had a particular love for cream in her coffee with plenty of sugar. How she hadn’t forgotten how much he loved her hands rubbing the tension out of his shoulders. 

How he knew the exact spot on her neck that sent her into raptures. How she knew exactly the way to send him to the brink and back over and over again, without letting him go over the edge because he loved to prolong their ecstasy. 

**********

Claire sat in the doctor’s lounge, sipping a coffee in hopes it would revive her enough to survive the rest of her shift. Glancing at her watch, it was nearing midnight. She perused the newspaper, as was her usual habit. She glanced fondly at the personal column, remembering the day when fate brought her and Jamie back together again. 

Then she saw it.

She set her coffee down and held the paper up closer to read it again. 

> _**Dr. C. E. B.,  
>  It was fate.   
> I love you, still.  
> Always and forever.  
> Be my wife again?  
> JAMMF** _

She smiled radiantly, then called Joe to cover the rest of her shift. She was going home. She needed to see a man about a midnight tryst under a tree.

_THE END_

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: ‘Huit’ (pronounced wheet) is French for eight. I hope. If it isn’t, blame Google translator. :)


End file.
